But while there is certainly an element of caution to Charlie Whiting's decisions in wet races, Carlos Sainz insists the conditions were very poor on Sunday.

"I understand the decisions of race control," he told Spain's El Mundo Deportivo, "because there really was a lot of aquaplaning.

"From home it's very easy to see 'Why are they not racing!' But it was really tough. Kimi Raikkonen spun 10 metres in front of me at 300 kilometres per hour -- can you imagine what a crash that could have been?"

What he doesn't agree with was how many laps the cars circulated behind the safety car for.

"In the end we should race or not -- many laps behind the safety car was the worst thing," said the Spaniard.

Fingers of blame have pointed at Pirelli's wet weather tyre, and Max Verstappen thinks the situation should improve for 2017 as downforce increases.

"Of course I think next year we can improve the tyres but I think it's a combination of having more horse power and torque now and less downforce," he said.

"I think next year it should be solved -- it should be much easier to drive the cars in the wet because of having quite a lot more downforce," said Max.